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  1. #1

    SSD vs SAS 15K drives for hosting

    Hi,
    I just install new server for hosting and I have dilemma
    this is IBM x3550 M4 + 128GB RAM
    (for vps and shared hosting, should work as RAID10)
    use 8x SSD 256GB or 8x 300GB SAS15K
    SSD Manufacturer Part Number: 90Y8643
    SAS Manufacturer Part Number: 81Y9670
    Disk space is not a consideration and server backups are performed outside.

    Some people telling me that SSD is faster and better and others that SSD have multi-write issues and SSD not recommended to RAID / hosting

    Have an "authoritative / Professional answer"?

    Best Regards,

  2. #2
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    I was going to copy and paste my response from another recent thread. However I'll just link it and say I highly recommend Corsair Force GS series drives for RAID. My most recent was 8 x 360GB Corsair Force GS in RAID50.

  3. #3
    Hi Mike,
    thanks for this answer!
    anyway, I can install any drives on x3550 M4 with the build in controller?

    so there is no any re-write issue with SSD?

    Best Regards,

  4. #4
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    Most controllers won't have any sort of limitation like that. Usually only SAN storage vendors lock their stuff down like that. Regular servers are generally wide open to accept any standardized type of drive. Just make sure all of your hardware firmware is up to date on the system, controller and SSD's and you should be fine.

    SSD's can wear out yes, but newer drives are a lot better about it than in the past. To the point where its a non issue for the most part these days. 2012 was the "year of the SSD" for me, there's almost no reason not to consider them now. Unless you really don't need the performance, however pricing vs. SAS in your case will likely be a close call. So it might be best to opt for the SSD's.
    Last edited by MikeTrike; 01-30-2013 at 11:28 AM.

  5. #5
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    In this particular case I'd go for 8 x CSSD-F240GBGS-BK. You should expect better I/O and it will cost you less then SAS hdd.
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  6. #6
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    8x samsung 840's would be a nice setup - massive speed.

    And in regards to wearing the drives out, they hold down quite good. Even with big write numbers.
    /maze

  7. #7
    Thanks for the info!
    about the raid Array, what will be the best for speed?
    (Not counting RAID0)

    Best Regards,

  8. #8
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    Generally RAID10 is used for spindles, however since SSD's have become more common. I've used RAID5/6/50/60 in many cases. The IOPS are just insane compared to normal spindle drives, so it really doesn't matter as much. Unless you have a very sensitive and specialized application that you need to squeeze every last IOP out for. With SSD's you can generally lean more for capacity and redundancy vs. something like RAID10 for IOPS and redundancy.

  9. #9
    Raid 5 works very well for ssd's since they have a very fast rebuild time. I recommend if you're using large arrays (8+ drives) that you do R5 + 1 for a hotspare so the array will rebuild itself as the failure rates are enough that out of 8 drives there's a reasonable enough chance that 1 could fail in 5 years.

    Also consider write endurance (an often overlooked statistic) of the drives you're consider in order to find out what their "1%" MWI is. This is how much data you can write to the drive before they hit 1% of their P/E cycle rating, essentially, how much data you can write to them before they will show signs of write fatigue.

    for example:

    The OCZ Vertex 4 series 512GB SSD has 512GB of Intel ONFI 2 synchronous MLC NAND onboard, with a life expectancy of 5000 P/E cycles, and a user capacity of 476GB.
    So this has a 1% w.e. of ~25Tb, this will typically lower with the drive size among the same series. If you have 8 drives, 7 in Raid 5, you can expect to write 6 * 25Tb before you get to the write limit. This is more than enough for most web apps, but some data intensive jobs (db, map, etc) will require frequent writes (rewrites) that can affect this durability. This can write about 13GB/day for 5 years per drive, reliably. For around $450.

    an enterprise Intel 710 (200Gb) for example has a much higher P/E cycle endurance, about 36,000, so despite being a smaller capacity, it can write 76Tb before hitting it's 1% MWI. It is also more expensive, at $780.

    an Intel 910 (800Gb) has a P/E cycle endurance of about 41,000, lending to a MWI of about 370Tb of writes before the drive reaches it's 1% MWI. It's also $4000. Given though that you can write 15x more data to it than a vertex, it's value is still there for write-intensive applications.

    tl;dr - check how much data you're writing to disk at the moment, and figure out your GB written/day and budget accordingly.

  10. #10
    Hi webedgeco,
    thanks for this detailed information!
    I will check it for the specific Interested models.

    Best regards,

  11. #11
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    Samsung 840 Pros would be a good bet, definitely better than whatever garbage OCZ is forcing upon us these days.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by [CTI] Todd View Post
    Samsung 840 Pros would be a good bet, definitely better than whatever garbage OCZ is forcing upon us these days.
    The non-pro models use a new TLC (to MLC what MLC is to SLC), and those have even less write endurance.

  13. #13
    Have a look here for some very good real-world examples of how much data certain ssd's can take before they give up the ghost (or hit their internal MWI).

    http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...e-25nm-Vs-34nm

  14. #14
    ^

    They have a samsung 830 (similar to the 840pro with regards to architecture) that has written 6Pb of data without failing, and only hit its mwi after ~830Tb of written data. You can see OCZ regularly comes up short in terms of endurance in a real world environment.

  15. #15
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    I have noticed a lot of people going with the Samsung 840 Pro series over the past couple of months. Relatively decent pricing, and much much higher quality than OCZ drives. That would be my recommendation for sure!
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  16. #16
    The real constraint with SSD, in my experience, is size. These days you can readily find a 2TB 15k RPM SAS drive, but you're not going to find a SSD anywhere near that size.

    Also, if you're considering these drives for any type of database server, I would definitely go with something like 4 x 1TB 15k SAS drives in RAID 10.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by njsmitty View Post
    The real constraint with SSD, in my experience, is size. These days you can readily find a 2TB 15k RPM SAS drive, but you're not going to find a SSD anywhere near that size.

    Also, if you're considering these drives for any type of database server, I would definitely go with something like 4 x 1TB 15k SAS drives in RAID 10.
    Any links to where you can get 2TB 15kRPM sas drives? As far as I'm aware the 15k models don't exist in that size. And there are 1TB SSD drives available but they do come with a hefty price.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by techjr View Post
    Any links to where you can get 2TB 15kRPM sas drives? As far as I'm aware the 15k models don't exist in that size. And there are 1TB SSD drives available but they do come with a hefty price.
    15k = 2.5" = no 2tb yet.

    I think anything in 1tb+ is 3.5" and 7200rpm, sas or sata.

  19. #19
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    SSD with RAID 10

  20. #20
    and Samsung 840 pro will work with IBM x3550 M4?
    (is not on the supported devices list)
    http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/xbc/co...4_7914hdd.html

    Best Regards,

  21. #21
    Hello,

    What controller does the M4 have? (RAID controller)

    I think it's LSI based, right?

    What about using SAS SSD's, e.g. 200GB SAS, it's a bit more costly but you'll get a solid 5 years out of the disks without fear of any cataclysmic data loss (let's think back to 2011 when guys used the M4 in RAID..)
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  22. #22
    Hi,
    the controller is ServeRAID M5100 Series

    Best Regards,

  23. #23
    If you are going to use SSD, check a RAID card with TRIM support and never use RAID-soft like mdadm.

    https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/...ssdtuning.html

    Red Hat also warns that software RAID levels 1, 4, 5, and 6 are not recommended for use on SSDs. During the initialization stage of these RAID levels, some RAID management utilities (such as mdadm) write to all of the blocks on the storage device to ensure that checksums operate properly. This will cause the performance of the SSD to degrade quickly.

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